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Gender budgeting is a strategy and a process with the long-term aim of achieving gender equality goals.
This step-by-step toolkit aims to assist managing authorities in the European Union to apply gender budgeting tools in the processes of the EU Funds under shared management.

EIGE has developed an online toolkit to apply gender budgeting as a gender mainstreaming tool in EU Funds processes.
The first three sections introduce the concept of gender budgeting and examine its relevance for the EU Funds. Section 4 offers 11 practical tools on gender budgeting, related to:
the EU regulatory framework;
national/sub-national programming and projectlevel support;

This report proposes a model to advance gender equality in Member States by transforming roles and responsibilities in care work. The model supports innovative practice and gender analysis to realise the potential of the European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund in the promotion of work–life balance in the EU.

Although the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) was established 25 years ago, many of the challenges identified in 1995 remain relevant today (such as the gender pay gap, unequal distribution of unpaid work or experiences of gender-based violence, to name just a few).

The Europe 2020 strategy aims to lift at least 20 million people out of poverty and social exclusion. However, this target does not directly acknowledge the gender dimension of poverty and looks unlikely to be met; 23.3 % of women and 21.6 % of men in the EU remain at risk of poverty or social exclusion.

Since 2013, the EU has made several commitments to address gender equality issues in education and training. The Strategic Engagement for Gender Equality 2016-2019 highlighted the need to address gendered choices in study subjects and subsequent careers.

Gender stereotypes and socioeconomic inequalities continue to impact on access use of preventative and curative health services. For example, while the EU has done work to increase the access of girls and women living outside the EU to sexual and reproductive health services, there has been limited action to promote access to such services within the EU.

All EU Member States have criminalised some forms of violence against womenand, together with the EU institutions, have worked to strengthen legal frameworks and better determine the scale of the phenomenon.

The Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) underlined the importance of women’s participation in conflict resolution and the promotion of lasting peace. It also recognised that women have the right to protection, as they are at particular risk of being targeted by violence in conflict, such as conflict-related sexual violence and forced displacement.

Women’s economic empowerment has long been a feature of EU policy, but the shift in priorities in the aftermath of the economic crisis has left the employment policy largely gender blind. Thus the Europe 2020 strategy includes a target of having 75 % of the working age population in employment by 2020 but does not distinguish between women and men.

Recent years have seen considerable focus on the representation of women in political and economic decision-making by EU institutions. Both the European Parliament and the European Commission put in place actions to encourage politicians in the Member States to introduce measures to improve and accelerate gender balance in political and economic leadership positions.